


The Red Book of Hergest

by Merovignian



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms, Culhwch ac Olwen, High Noon Over Camelot - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Characters to be added, F/F, Gen, Hereward the Wake (referenced), Tags to be added, extensive reimagining of mythology, this is a mechs fanwork so it needs to be very gay very violent and very snarky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:09:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22089913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merovignian/pseuds/Merovignian
Summary: "...this is a tale from the early days, when the Pendragon Gang were just getting started. Camelot itself was safe enough by then but the Knights of the Round Table were still a mere local posse, a hermit kingdom among dozens with only limited renown...“Until the day that Culhwch daughter of Cilydd son of Celyddon came roaring into town, her advent bright as forge-fresh steel against the rusted metal wasteland."A retelling of one of the earliest Arthurian tales, as it went down on Fort Galfridian.Chapter 2: Regarding CulhwchIn which your humble Captain explains the origins, parentage and upbringing of our soon-to-be heroine.
Relationships: Culhwch/Olwen
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	1. Prologue on a Doomed Saxon Orbital

A tale of honour and glory?

Again?

And here I thought for sure you people had finally gotten tired of that song and dance. Two weeks performing in this dive of an art bar and no-one wants anything but songs about bravery and valour. I've given you people happy endings three days on the trot at this point and believe me, I haven't suffered a streak like that since before this sorry excuse for a space station was _built_.

I suppose it can't be helped; ever since the raiders who made a mess of Fulford Station finally got what was coming to them this place has been a damn carnival of backpatting and celebration. Makes me sick. Mind, I do have to admit it was good the way they livestreamed General Tostig's execution - I've always liked a good beheading. Been on the receiving end, even, which was a wild experience - maybe I'll tell you about it sometime - but something gives off the impression that unlike me, Tostig Godwinson isn't going to be getting back up again. Treason doth never prosper, or so the saying goes, and after a show like that it's no wonder spirits are high.

And once you lot realise the sheer size of that battlefleet approaching from the Normandy Sector, well...You're gonna need a few sweet memories to see you through what happens next. So what the hell? Happy endings all round.

What? You hadn't heard about that? Oh, just my little joke. Nothing to get worried about. Nothing you can do about it anyway.

Instead just sit yourselves down, open your bottles and shut your mouths as I spin to you a yarn of honour and courage and love and blood and whiskey.

Now blood and whiskey are the only things I've ever loved and honour was never my style, while courage means little to a man who cannot die. But on this occasion I, Jonny d'Ville, your never-once-humble narrator and bard, will comply to the tastes of the town.

And I will tell you the tale of Culhwch and Olwen.

**The Red Book of Hergest**

Well _you_ of all crowds should know about the place where this saga of ours is set. A tale of hometown heroes, this one, set in your very own Avalon System, played out on a mighty space station built on the third Lagrange point between Homeworld and the Sun. At least, it _was_ on the L3 point before the orbit began to decay, left as it was without maintenance after the withdrawal of the failing Empire which built it as their masterwork.

Like many ego projects it was named for its inventor, a bullshit artist of the highest caliber who went by the name of Galfridus. 'course, when I knew him as a drinking buddy back in the dive bars of Monemutensis Station, he liked his friends to call him Geoff. Whatever the name, his ability to lie with a straight face whilst hammered on cheap booze was matched only by his skill as an architect and engineer, and never was this more clear than on his magnum opus: Fort Galfridian.

The thing was the size of a moon and had the firepower of a battlefleet, could support a self-sufficient human population that shows up these little tin cans you call space stations as the hovels that they are. It was an orbital habitat without peer, capable of replicating or rebuilding all the wonders of the interstellar civilisation which had wrought it out of steel and plastic and titanium and chrome and megalomanical delusion. 

And its people nearly managed it.

Fort Galfridian was a harsh place after the fall of the old ways, a cruel place, where the bad really were bad and the good just did what they could. Everywhere was, everywhere which survived the Empire's collapse, but that mighty orbital had so much further to fall, so many more weapons with which to tear itself apart. But for a time there was a ray of light. For one day a trio of gunslingers came riding into a two-cylinder town called Camelot, led by the swiftest, sharpest, surest sherrif who ever drew their piece to protect those who had done no harm to no-one. 

Arthur.

The gunslingers who flocked to his tin star fought, not against each other, but with their backs to a great round steel disc repurposed as their feasting table. With their guns pointed outwards these savage souls quelled the mad slaughter that raged around them, whilst the weak and the innocent stood protected on the mighty table at their backs. For the span of a lifetime, Camelot was a town worth living in. And for the span of a noble quest, the Avalon system was nearly saved, freed to rebuild the glories of its first and fallen empire instead of dwindling into a bunch of scattered, ramshackle shadows.

But this is not that story. You, yes _you_ I heard you, _yes_ I _know_ you've heard all that before, you're _welcome_. We were telling it just last week, idiot, and if you want to hear it again we'll be telling it next week too. Now shut up. Because this is a tale from the early days, when the Pendragon Gang were just getting started. Camelot itself was safe enough by then, but the Knights of the Round Table were still a mere local posse, a hermit kingdom among dozens with only limited renown.

Until the day that Culhwch daughter of Cilydd son of Celyddon came roaring into town, her advent bright as forge-fresh steel against the rusted metal wasteland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My source for the Culhwch ac Olwen comes from here: http://culhwch.info/
> 
> The Mechanisms own High Noon Over Camelot, Jonny d'Ville is Jon Sim's bandsona, creative commons, etc.
> 
> I'm using the framing device of Jonny telling this tale to the Belter society seen in Hereward the Wake, a headcanon birthed off Hereward being, historically, a descendant of the Saxon tribes.
> 
> Lets see where this one goes, shall we?


	2. Regarding Culhwch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which your humble Captain explains the origins, parentage and upbringing of our soon-to-be heroine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mention of old technology will be important later, and I need some explanation of where my analogues for the bizarre nonsense of the original tale come from.
> 
> The original idea for this chapter has been split into three thanks to how long it got, and I'm not sure about this bit, but I felt I needed to produce some sort of update rather than chase my own tail seeking perfection. That's what often trips me up.
> 
> Coming up next will be a meeting with 'Merlin', a few of Arthur's weirder knights, Welsh giants, some singing, and an adaption of the Culhwch ac Olwen's famous description of horse riding. On a motorbike.
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy it!

Before we truly introduce our protagonist, I feel a bit of backstory is required.

It all began when Cilydd, mayor and protector of a trading post and two-bit town on the upper levels of Fort Galfridian, decided he wanted a wife as well-born as he. That's how it worked in that part of the station, see, as high in archeotech as it was low in drinkable water; nobody up there had access to _every_ essential resource, so it was a complex game of trading and alliances to ensure the survival of each settlement. The well-to-do married for advantage, and love was a bonus. 

You have to understand, some places on Fort Galfridian were lucky enough to be plugged into the water supply, or had easy access to the hydroponics sections. Places like Camelot, Alnwick, Lyonesse...at least before that nasty business with the pipes gave them rather more water than they could handle, at any rate. Cilydd's stomping ground did not. In fact, many of the systems needed to support any sizeable population had rapidly broken down centuries before, though whether from accident or malicious design I cannot say. 

And so many ancient weapons and devices that were rare elsewhere remained intact, for those who would have used them to destruction or stripped them for parts had all swiftly died of thirst or worse things. But if there's one thing you learn over an immortal lifetime it's that life thrives wherever life can, and eventually a few hardy souls managed to repopulate the area. They fixed what they could...and with those ancient weapons they took what they could not.

As said, this was a ruthless place, full of cold equations and political marriages. But our boy Cilydd struck it lucky and got love thrown into the bargain, for the well-off Goleuddydd daughter of Anlawd filled a hole in the weary gunfighter's heart. They were happy together, in as much as anyone was happy on the crumbling ruin that was Fort Galfridian. Then after a time dear, sweet Goley became with child, and both she and Cilydd were overjoyed.

Until Goleuddydd fell ill during childbirth. She became victim to a complication that would have been dealt with in an instant by the medical technology of any half-functional industrial society, let alone the ancients who had built the Fort, but those who still lived in that rust-strewn wreck of a space station had fallen far. The travelling doctor who delivered, one John Henry Holliday, did as good a job as was possible using rusted tools and whiskey for disinfectant, and he managed to save the child. He was no miracle worker however, and he could not save Goleuddydd.

Before she died, she spoke to her husband thus: "I will soon be dead from this sickness, and you will want another wife. So I ask you this: That you go searching for a partner when you see the first fleck of rust on my grave."

Cilydd made this promise to her, and he kept it. And he erected a tombstone of tempered steel for his fallen love, as was the way in that part of Fort Galfridian; for what material was more ubiquitous in the station than steel?

Now, there are some differences in opinion as to why she asked him this, what she meant by it, and who was thus responsible for what happened next. Because in stark contrast to almost everything else in the entire damn station, her marker remained untouched and shining for the better part of twenty years.

There are those that claim Goleuddydd asked for her tombstone to be raised where it was. That she feared for her child, that any new lover might wish their own heirs to be raised up over hers. Others say that she wanted Cilydd to move on, to find another to soothe his aching heart, and that his love for her would drive him to keep his promise the second the omnipresent corrosion touched her steely gravestone. These people say it was Cilydd who chose the marker to be where it was, that he did not want another bride, but to sit and remember she whom he had loved and lost.

Me, I think it was a total coincidence. Those cleaning robots just migrated over there by chance, fuck this poetic angst for a lark.

Whatever the case, Goleuddydd's grave ended up being erected in one of the few places on the station where Fort Galfridians automated repair procedures hadn't completely broken down. Any trace of rust on her epitaph was swiftly removed, and for year after year it remained shining and pure, bereft of any mark. Cilydd remained unwed, and in this time his child grew.

There are men who would have felt bitterness towards such a kid after that, the squalling brat who took their love from them. But Cilydd had raged enough in his life, and there was no space left for malice in his heart. There was, however, more than enough space for grief. And when his child looked at him with the same eyes as his dear, departed wife, he could not bear to look back. He fostered the child, but because of the love he still bore he ensured it went to one of his best allies, one he could trust to raise his only heir well.

The child remained nameless at that time. No point naming a kid who might die of a thousand causes by the next morning, is there? Be like giving a name to every bullet on your bandolier. On Galfridian, you had to make it a few years before you were worth calling something other than 'kid', 'you' or 'wart'. But Cilydd and Goleuddydd's child beat the thousand hazards that preyed on the young of Fort Galfridian, the scorpions in the cot and the ash inside the lungs and the cruel consumption that the locals could no longer treat.

And when the child was old enough to hold a gun and not drop it she was given the name of Culhwch, meaning 'house of pigs', for that was where she had been raised.

It sounds like a rude name to you, maybe, but let me tell you that in its context the name held great honour. For there were few safe passages to the hydroponic sections on this level and they were closely guarded, their masters taking a heavy toll of all the goods that passed through. So a lot of the food was grown instead in great algae vats ruled over by those who still knew the secrets of their function.

Not as appealing as fresh vegetables, but it filled the belly, and there were many organic byproducts of this process which humans could not eat...whereas pigs can eat anything. Their keepers did well out of the trade and were held in great regard, for from those animals came the peppered pork chops and flaky, creamy wheels of cheese on which the well to do would feast, the sheriffs and their deputies, the mayors and the warlords and the giants.

We'll get to the giants.

Suffice to say Culhwch grew up in a well-to-do household, looking out over the farms on which the prized hogs were fed on nutrient slurry no human could choke down. She grew up healthy and tall, for as a well-to-do scion she was well fed. She grew up strong, too, for nobody was so noble as to avoid toil and wrangling pigs is hard and dirty work. Her hair was redder than the rusted iron floor, brighter than the fluorescent sun that rose and fell in mockery of day and night, and her eyes were sharp and fearless.

And most importantly of all, she grew up swift of hand and sure of eye, a keen shot with revolver and rifle. All wealth on Fort Galfridian soon gathered violent souls to defend it, for if it did not, other violent souls would soon come to take it. Rank begets responsibility, and our heroine had taken lives in cold blood at an age when luckier children were still in schooling. 

With every year that passed the world grew a little bit hotter, every year the machinery grew a little more run down, every year the rust grew a little thicker on seemingly everything save, of course, her mother's grave.

Until at last those maintenance robots could hold on no longer. Entropy claims us all in the end, and no matter how long you fight, however much you rage against the dying of the light, sooner or later all things crumble and are lost. Even I, your humble narrator, sometimes wonder. For a span that grave seemed timeless, immortal, but eventually reality showed that illusion for what it was. And one day Cilydd walked there to think on his lost love and saw it, the creeping blood-red decay.

As his promise had demanded, he sought for himself a new wife. And what followed from that decision would lead his daughter across the wastes, to the court of Arthur, to destiny and to love.

And to Ysbaddaden Pencawr, the Ruler of Giants.


End file.
